The body of Adam Lanza, who fatally shot 26 people, including 20 children, at an elementary school this month, has been claimed for burial, according to the Connecticut chief medical examiner’s office.

A spokeswoman for the office declined on Sunday to say who had claimed Mr. Lanza’s body or to elaborate.

State police are considering partially re-creating the scene outside the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown on Dec. 14 as the first police officers responded to the mass shooting to try and answer a nagging question: Did Adam Lanza fire at police officers?

Police are discussing bringing back some of the cars that were in the school lot as the first Newtown officers and state police troopers arrived following 911 calls that was a shooter was on the loose. The cars will be placed exactly where they parked that morning as will the police cruisers of the first responders. The plan is to receate the scene in the coming week.

WEST VALLEY CITY — On Feb. 5, as most residents were returning home from church or making final preparations for their Super Bowl parties, two short tweets sent by the Pierce County Sheriff's Office marked the beginning of what would become the biggest — and among the most tragic — news story of the year in Utah, even though the events happened 850 miles away in Washington state.

"Rescue operation in progress. Head towards Powell residence. Stand by" and "All media please stand by. Will have more in a few" were the consecutive tweets sent by detective Ed Troyer.

Unknown sources are funneling money into new research aimed at finding the so-called “evil” gene that may have been responsible for the recent mass shooting that allegedly took place at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. According to the U.K.’s Daily Mail, researchers from the University of Connecticut have been tasked with dissecting the dead body of Adam Lanza, the young man accused of killing 20 children and six adults at the school, in search of a malformed or mutated gene that may have triggered his alleged bout of violent rage that fateful December 14 morning.

A 5-year-old boy Talladega boy missing since the day after Christmas has been found safe in Daytona Beach and his non-custodial father was arrested in connection with his disappearance, according to the Alabama Department of Public Safety.

Thomas Eric Diggs, 35, was arrested Friday and booked into the Volusia County Branch Jail where he is being held without bail awaiting transport to Alabama, according to jail's website.

The mother of a man wanted by authorities in the killing of his ex-girlfriend in Little Havana is begging her son to turn himself in to authorities.

Celina Quintana told NBC 6’s sister station Telemundo 51 on Saturday that she hopes her fugitive son, Ifrain Quintana, 42, doesn’t kill himself while on the run.

Celina Quintana said her son, who she says has a history of mental illness, spent time years ago in a mental-health facility in Cuba. She said she and her son spoke on the phone after Friday’s killing, and it was then that her son threatened to die by suicide.

A third suspect has been arrested following the discovery of a 4-year-old girl's body in a shallow grave in the desert south of Baker, Calif., the San Bernardino County Sheriff's Department announced Saturday.

Rayshawn Stanch, 26, of Adelanto was arrested Friday at 9:15 p.m. on a parole violation and suspicion of murder in the death of 4-year-old Samiah Downing. He is being held without bail.

Driving along County Line Road headed to her parents' home Christmas Day with her own two daughters in tow, the mother passed two small children walking on the shoulder dangerously close to the icy roadway.

The little girl was 6. The 4-year-old boy appeared small for his age. Both wandered helplessly susceptible to the below-freezing elements as cars whizzed past.

"It was very cold," says the woman, whose name is being withheld from this story.

"They didn't have any coats on. They just had a jacket, like a sweatshirt type of thing. And the little boy wasn't even wearing his jacket. It looked like she just threw it over him ... a sweatshirt type thing, real thin."

The mom turned the car around and headed back to the two tykes. Stopped on the side of the road, she pulled both children into her car and asked what they were doing.

NEWTOWN — State police are in the process of transferring control and protection of Sandy Hook Elementary School to Newtown police, Police Chief Michael Kehoe said Friday.

Making the transition will be a gradual process as state troopers wrap up the crime scene investigation, Kehoe said.

Newtown police are guarding Sandy Hook to prevent thieves or anyone else from getting inside, Kehoe said. Police are "very concerned" about the possibility that curious people may also try to sneak inside for a look, Kehoe said.

LAUDERDALE LAKES, Fla. (AP) — Authorities say the father of a 13-year-old girl who was fatally shot on a school bus in South Florida last month is dead in an apparent suicide.

The Broward Sheriff's Office said 34-year-old Armando Alexander Guzman was found dead in a car near Fort Lauderdale Thursday morning from what appeared to be a self-inflicted gunshot wound. A witness called 911 after noticing a bullet hole in the car's window and a person inside.

Guzman's daughter, 13-year-old Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus, was shot in neck on the way to school in Homestead on Nov. 20.

| Friday, Dec 28, 2012 | Updated 10:23 PM EST

Officers picked up the alleged caught on camera shooter Matthew Early, 18, around 6 p.m. in North Philadelphia, police confirmed to NBC10.

Early was being held awaiting arraignment.

His younger brother Eric Early, 17, has been behind bars since his capture Dec. 17 unable to post $5 million bail. The younger Early was charged with attempted murder, aggravated assault, reckless endangerment about other charges.

MISSISSAUGA - Public appeals to help police find two Mississauga teenagers were issued Friday — the day after one girl left home and one week after another girl with a history of wandering vanished from school.

Peel Regional Police Const. Erin Cooper said Taylor Brum, 15, was warmly dressed when she walked out of her Cavell Dr. house in the Queensway-Mavis Rd. area around 10 p.m. Thursday.

“This is the first time she’s done this,” Cooper said, adding Taylor “doesn’t have her medications and that’s one of our concerns.”

Taylor is described as white, 5-foot-4, slim, with brown hair plus a blonde streak in the under layers, and is likely wearing a purple winter jacket and tan UGG boots.

Taylor Brum

The older missing teen,

16, was last seen after being dropped off at St. Francis Xavier school, at 50 Bristol Rd., around 9 a.m. Dec. 21.

A 911 call placed by Clark teenager Kara Alongi from a New Jersey Turnpike service area has been released by State Police, according to a report on Clark.Patch.com.

In the call, Alongi, 16, tells a state trooper that she was placed in a taxi cab by someone she described as a 28-year-old black man who entered her house. From there, she told police that her abductor directed her to a train station.

An appeals court should uphold the DUI manslaughter conviction and 16-year prison sentence for John Goodman, state prosecutors said in a written answer to the International Polo Club Palm Beach founder’s appeal.

A Parker County grand jury on Friday indicted a 17-year-old boy for the capital murders of his mother and sister.

A court document shows Jake Evans is facing three counts: one for shooting his sister at the top of the stairs, one for shooting her after she rolled down the stairs, and one for fatally shooting his mother.

Melvin A. Ehrlich, 52, was arraigned Thursday in Framingham District Court on three counts of possession of child pornography and two counts of distribution of child pornography, according to the release.

Ehrlich, who was arrested Wednesday, pleaded not guilty at his arraignment, according to Stephanie Chelf Guyotte, spokeswoman for the district attorney's office.

The children at the Sandy Hook Elementary school won't be returning to classes for another week, but officials from the town, school district and local agencies are doing their best in the meantime to keep them occupied following a massacre at their school two weeks ago.

The students have not attended school since a gunman killed 20 of their schoolmates and six adults on Dec. 14. They are slated to return to a different school next Thursday.

A burned body was found along a Salisbury Township road Thursday morning and the Lehigh County’s Coroner’s Office announced Thursday that they were investigating the woman’s death as suspicious.

A resident called police around 9:30 a.m. after seeing something burning along the road by the Umani Fish & Game shooting club on Chestnut Hill Road in Salisbury Township, Pa., according to EmmausPatch.

Police announced the upcoming meeting during a Dec. 14 press conference, when Department of Public Safety spokesman Steve McCausland said investigators would meet with Trista Reynolds "in the coming days."

Reynolds said a meeting scheduled for Dec. 19 was canceled by a detective who told her it would be rescheduled later that week.

NORTH LAS VEGAS, Nev. (AP) — Police investigating the week-old disappearance of a 10-year-old Las Vegas girl said Thursday they think they found the child's body in an undeveloped housing tract in North Las Vegas.

Authorities couldn't immediately confirm the body was Jade Morris pending positive identification and notification of family members by the Clark County coroner, Las Vegas police homicide Capt. Chris Jones said.

SAN ANTONIO -
San Antonio police arrested a man accused of murder, and suspected of abducting his own 11-month-old son.

A tip sent in to Crime Stoppers led investigators to a house in the 200 block of Carmen Street. There, they found 23-year-old Jonathan Jose Guillen in the back room, said San Antonio Police Officer Matt Porter.

DECEMBER 26--A convicted felon who traveled to Newtown, Connecticut and masqueraded as the uncle of Sandy Hook Elementary School gunman Adam Lanza has been arrested on a federal probation violation charge, The Smoking Gun has learned.

Jonathan Lee Riches was busted late last week and booked into the Chester County jail.

Christopher Siegert’s profile on a social networking app allegedly says he is looking for chats, dates, friends and relationships.

What he found, after traveling to meet who he thought was a 15-year-old boy he wanted to have sex with, was quite different: Boynton Beach Police, Homeland Security Investigators and a possible minimum of 10 years in prison.

Arizona may start arming school principals to protect students from attacks like the one on Newtown, Connecticut. Arizona Attorney General Tom Horne is offering a proposal that would allow school principals or another staffer to be trained to use a firearm.

His plan would require a change in state law, which currently allows only police officers to carry firearms on school grounds.

A Florida mother was arrested last week after allegedly threatening to blow up her daughter's elementary school.

On Thursday, Jessica Schauer, 26, was on the premises of Pinecrest Elementary when she allegedly made the statement, "Don't bring your kid to school that day" to an unidentified witness, according to a release from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office. Two witnesses told deputies that when Schauer was asked what day she meant, she responded, "The day I blow it up."

AURORA, Colo. (CBS4) – The Arapahoe County district attorney’s office has mailed a letter to survivors and family members of victims of the Aurora movie theater shooting warning them about an upcoming hearing for suspect James Holmes.

The preliminary hearing for Holmes will take place in a little more than two weeks. What happened the early morning of July 20 at the Century 16 theater is expected to be explained in detail in the Jan. 7 hearing.